this is a boring forum

As I said early on, this "Christian History" forum is under the general topic "Theology." Christian history, rather than the secular history of the West and Byzantium, largely concerns theological issues. The reason why there was a Nestorian breakaway, for instance, and some today who reject Chalcedon, was theological, at least in the minds of those breaking away and those staying in the Church.

The fact remains that Christians consider Nestorians heretics. This is an historical fact now as much as theological.

BrendanMark said:

I guess all I'm saying in the end is that although I would like to see more interesting and informative discussion of Christian history such discussions are by their very nature problematic and difficult to create and maintain. It doesn't take too many disruptions - sometimes not deliberate or malicious - for a thread to go sideways.

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I think you could safely say the same goes across the board.

Thank you LamorakDesgalis, I will try to find these books. Thank you for the compliment on my user name. My intent was to have the sound of that talking bottle of syrup running through the mind of anyone reading my post. I don't know If I have been successful at this, but it was the intent.

BrendaMark, while Christian theological history is important, there are other ways of looking at Christian history. In the same way military or political history is not the only way of looking at history. The void I see is a lack of testimonials of what God has done in and through people in the past, and perhaps a sense of the way things were like for Christians of that time period. This can give Christians a sense of who we are today. Testimonials of what God has done can also help boost faith and confidence. The notion being here is that if God did this for this person, that person, and the other person, he can help me in my circumstances as well.

The experience of God was largely what theology was about, so I don't see how the subjects are mutually exclusive or that "testimonials" qualify as history rather than anecdote from the past.

It was the living experience of the living God that inspired St Athanasius and St Gregory of Nazianzen, for instance, in their defense of the Trinity. Their theology was their testimonials:

In Gregory’s view, Christian theology involves and represents a dynamic, lived relationship between God and the theologian, and so it begins not with abstract information about God—as if this could ever be acquired neutrally—but with the transformation of the theologian within the horizon of God’s presence and activity in the world, as it is recognized and celebrated in the life of the Church. It is a constant refrain in Gregory’s work that spiritual progress and right belief unavoidably go together. In other words, Gregory’s doctrines of God and of the human person intrinsically involve each other; as Jean Plaginieux observes, it is impossible to separate Gregory’s doctrine of God from his doctrine of the means by which God is known. Gregory’s doctrine of the Trinity thus includes the theologian’s own situation with respect to God, and theology is a real illumination by which the theologian is initiated into the divine mystery in concrete and far-reaching ways. It is here, Gregory insists, that we must begin.
Beeley, Christopher A. – Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity and the Knowledge of God [Oxford Studies in Historical Theology, 2008, p.64]

Anecdotes from the past give you an Idea of how things were back then. This is one of the reasons why I love old books or stories from their original sources. They may not be written well, but they contain fresh uninterpreted history, with all its prejudices and details of how life was back then.